Month: November 2017

At the time when I discovered SFML and started to invest a lot of my free time on the forum and the IRC channel, there were no games made with SFML on Steam. Partially because SFML was less known, but probably more important, because getting on Steam was hard.

Only through the now discontinued Steam Greenlight it became possible for some indie developers to get their game approved by the community for Steam. And since then the number of SFML games on Steam has been growing.

Today I want to take a closer look at the first four SFML games that you can buy on Steam right now.

Postmortem: One Must Die

It’s the first game I know of that has been released to Steam and is using SFML. You slip into the role of an agent who’s mission is to kill one person at a gala in order to help future of a small nation. I quite enjoyed following different dialogues and learning about the issues of the country and it felt quite nice having various choices to steer a conversation. In the end though, the game is rather short and anyone who comes in with a different expectation will probably be disappointed. Personally, I enjoyed not only the technological feat that went into this, but also found the story and dialogues quite entertaining, while everything is giving of a nice vibe.

If you don’t feel like spending any money on the extended cut edition of the game, you can get a simpler version for free on their website.

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inSynch

Initially the game wasn’t published on Steam, but was sold through the Humble store. Only later on everyone who owned a copy on the Humble store, also got a Steam key. In one of my blog posts, I even gave away one copy of the game. inSynch is partially art and partially a skill game. The in-game objects were imported from real, physical objects and it gives the game a special aesthetic, but at the same time, you have to hit the right keys at the right time while focusing on four different lanes of moving objects. The slightly odd aesthetics and the pretty much impossible difficulty had left a weird feeling in me, but everyone needs to judge by themselves.

Turnover

Turnover is an excellent stealth game, there’s little room for error, thus strategy is a must. While having never played Hotel Miami the quick reaction from enemies and right-click aiming totally gives off a slight Hotel Miami vibe. Since I love stealth games, I do enjoy Turnover quite a bit. The mechanics are easy to learn, I do recommend however to quickly go through the optional tutorial in the menu as some interactions aren’t very obvious at first. It’s not a game where you can just run through it, but you really need to take your time and plot your path.

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Crea

With Crea, Siege Games has entered a genre that isn’t the easiest to get foothold in, but it certainly paid off. With a mixture of sandbox, RPG and adventure you get a game, that you can’t really experience in those few minutes I’ve played it so far. You can just explore the depth and heights, farm resources, build to your heart’s desire or tune your character to the maximum. Play the way you enjoy the most. I really like the visuals and I think, I’ll be investing a bit more time into this, just to see what’s all out there.

Also the developers stream (or streamed) a lot, so it’s definitely worth checking out their Twitch channel.

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Conclusion

I highly recommend to pickup a copy of Turnover and if you enjoy sandboxy games, then Crea certainly is something for you! Postmortem: One Must Die has a great concept and implementation, but lacks quite a bit in content, but for the price tag, might as well support the developer. If you enjoy arts and rhythm, then inSynch might be something for you.

Overall it’s amazing what people after done with SFML already multiple years ago and in the next part, we’ll get closer and closer to the current year.